Barn And Farm Buildings At Demesne Farm

A barn and attached farm buildings were constructed circa 1771-90 by Samuel Wyatt. The buildings are built of red Flemish bond brick, originally with a slate roof, now a combination of slate and corrugated iron. The complex is centred on a barn which forms the spine, with V-shaped ranges of farm buildings extending from either side. Double transepts are also present.

The south-west front features projecting transepts on either side of a lean-to, with lower flanking wings set at a 45-degree angle to the main barn. The central lean-to is supported by four cast iron columns of rudimentary Doric form carrying a cast iron lintel. The transepts have pedimental gables and cambered-headed openings for double barn doors; the right-hand opening is now blocked. A dentil band of three bricks projects below the gables. The main body of the barn has two Diocletian windows in the centre above the lean-to, and similar lateral windows beyond the transepts; below these windows are small lean-tos, each with a cambered-headed doorway and a 20th-century window. The right-hand wing has a wide double door opening with ashlar hinge dressings and a cambered arch, and a series of eight cambered-headed blind arches to the right, two of which have been damaged by inserted 20th-century windows. The left-hand range has been altered with the insertion of 19th and 20th-century doors and windows, but presumably originally resembled the right-hand wing. The north-eastern front was originally similar, but the central lean-to has been replaced with a 20th-century brick lean-to, and the angled wings have been altered with the insertion of doors and windows in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Inside the barn, internal battered buttresses are present at the junctures with the transepts. The trusses are of a Y-shape, incorporating wind braces. The ends of the building where the angled wings meet the barn at right angles contain a series of blind cambered arches, altered by later openings and blocked doorways and windows. Each gable end of the barn has a Diocletian window. The ends of each of the four angled wings originally had a central cambered doorway with circular pitch holes to either side.

Wyatt also designed a similar barn for Coke of Norfolk at Holkham, though it lacked the attached farm buildings.